SPOILERS FOR SEASON 6, EPISODE 13 FOLLOW!
By: Tyler Miller
This week we got another slow episode of The Walking Dead. Normally, these episodes that focus on a select few members of the group on their own adventure can feel like filler and be a bit boring, but last night’s was not like that for the most part. It may have been some filler, but it offered some great character development for Carol, and gave Maggie some more screen time that she needed this season.
Last night’s episode started off after the alarm went off during the attack on Negan’s outpost, with Carol and Maggie arguing about why Maggie was there. We see what happens afterwards though, with Carol shooting a man that’s sneaking up on them in the shoulder. They end up getting surrounded and captured though by the rest of the man’s group, consisting of three women.
We find out that the group belongs to the Saviors, and their names are Donnie, Paula, Molly, and Chelle. Paula is the leader and she’s definitely someone that doesn’t take any shit. Rick tries to work out a deal with her, trading Maggie and Carol for another Savior named Primo, but Paula isn’t buying what Rick’s selling and takes our ladies to a Savior safe house. On the way there, Paula gets in contact with another group of Saviors that are 30 minutes away, so it becomes a matter of seeing who gets there first: the Saviors or Rick’s group?
Once there, Carol and Maggie are both tied up and gagged, keeping them from possibly escaping. Carol begins to panic and hyperventilate, and Maggie isn’t sure if she’s faking it or if it’s real, but she gets Paula to take Carol’s gag off. As they drag a dead walker body out of the room, it drops a crucifix that Carol takes and puts in her pocket for later. The next bit of the episode really just focuses on Carol and how strange she’s acting. This isn’t the Carol that we saw kill Lizzie or single handedly bring Terminus burning down. She’s vulnerable, scared, and worried, mostly for Maggie’s life and her baby’s life.
The Carol that we get is the one that she was pretending to be for the Alexandrians; a woman that can’t protect herself and has only survived so long because of others. What raises eyebrows is the fact that Carol has been changing ever since the Wolf attack on Alexandria. After that happened, she became someone that would kill if necessary, but she started to feel bad about it and regret it. After the midseason premiere, Carol became someone that’s a bit more like Morgan. She doesn’t want to be a killer. She would rather let people have a chance to live than kill, but if push comes to shove, she’ll be the one to pull the trigger. It makes us wonder if Carol is really pretending right now for Paula and her group.
The facade begins to fall some when Donnie attacks Paula. Maggie and Carol jump in to help her, but Paula ends the fight by knocking him out. She has Chelle take Maggie into a different room and talk to her to try and find out where they’re holed up. Although they end up talking about other stuff like Chelle’s history, Maggie refuses to tell her about Alexandria.
Meanwhile, Paula and Molly talk with Carol about who she is and how weak she is. During their talk, Carol tells part of the truth about why they attacked the outpost (the attack on Daryl/Abraham/Sasha), and has a smoke along with Molly. Paula keeps on taunting Carol though, telling her that she should stick to her principles. Carol responds by telling her that she doesn’t want to. It’s a good thing she hasn’t either because they would all probably be dead already if she had. This just shows how Carol is changing more into someone like Morgan though.
Paula then spills her backstory out to Carol, telling her about how she used to be just like Carol; weak and helpless. Then the world ended and she had to kill her boss to escape D.C. Now her body count is somewhere in the double digits, and she doesn’t know the exact number. She’s gone through the same transformation as Carol, except she doesn’t know that Carol is more dangerous than she lets on.
Time is running out and Paula decides to go ahead and make the deal with Rick. When she doesn’t hear any static over the walkie talkie she catches onto the fact that Rick and the rest of the group are closer than she thought. She contacts the Savior scouting group and they say that they’re ten minutes out, so she leaves the room with Molly and starts to kill some of the walkers in the safe house.
Carol takes this opportunity to free herself and Maggie, who wants to kill the rest of the group, while Carol wants to just leave. Maggie goes into badass mode and uses the dead body of Donnie (who’s in the process of turning) to set up a trap for anyone who comes in the room. It works and leaves Molly dead. Paula comes back in and sees Molly dead with no prisoners. She’s pissed and ready to kill both Carol and Maggie.
It all comes to a head when Paula gets them cornered in a hall with walkers behind them. Carol pulls a gun on her, but doesn’t want to kill her. Things go sideways when one of the walkers almost bites Carol as she shoots Paula’s shoulder. Chelle hears all this going on and fights with Maggie until she gets shot right in the head by Carol. They find Paula on the ground by the walkers, and she still taunts Carol by telling her that she’s afraid. Carol admits she is, but she’s not afraid of Paula; she’s afraid of being a killer again. They get into a quick scuffle that ends very fast when Paula gets impaled by one of the sticks in the hall and has her face eaten by a walker.
The Savior scouting group contacts them and Carol pretends to be Paula, telling them to go to the Kill Floor. As they wait, Carol tells Maggie that she could’ve killed Donnie in the woods, but she missed on purpose. Carol really wanted to give him a chance to live. Once the scouting group arrives, Carol locks them in there and sets the oil covered floor on fire as the door closes, burning them all alive. Keep playing with fire Carol! It’s what you do best!
The episode ends with Rick and the rest of the group arriving at the safe house, ready to kill everyone. Daryl and Carol have a nice tender moment as they share a hug, as do Glenn and Maggie. Primo is still with them, but since there’s no need for him other than information, Rick asks him again where he got Daryl’s motorcycle and whether or not Negan was at the outpost or the safe house. Primo says both and that he’s Negan, something that I’m sure he regrets as Rick shoots him right in the head, ending him.
Other thoughts:
- I think it’s funny how Rick appeared at the end of the episode for less than 3 minutes and already added another body to his list.
- During her conversation with Maggie, Chelle makes a good point when she says that our protagonists aren’t the good guys. Although they’re the ones that we follow on the show, their actions last week (although they have good reason for them) make them look like the bad guys, especially because they had never done something like that before.
- When Carol mentioned to Molly and Paula that Negan’s men attacked first and that Negan is a maniac, Molly responded saying that they are all Negan. That makes me wonder if Negan has his people thinking with a cult mentality, or if they all say that they’re Negan to keep his true identity a secret and keep everyone on their toes. Rick and the group are in for a shock when he really shows up in the season finale though.
- Melissa McBride did a great job in this episode with the way she played Carol. She just keeps making her one of the best characters on the show.
- Speaking of Carol, I wonder how much further she’s going to go down this path of moral redemption. She doesn’t want to kill anymore, but I’m sure she’s going be put in a situation where she has to. Hopefully it doesn’t get her or anyone else killed. It also makes me wonder how her relationship with Morgan is going to be.
- Hearing the way the Paula spoke on the radio with the scouting group shows that the Saviors are VERY organized.
It’s interesting seeing episodes like this one. They can either be a total borefest, or they can be something else. The beginning was a bit boring, but it was still an entertaining episode in the end. Carol’s been even more fleshed out, and the threat of the Saviors has been increased even more. There’s only three episodes left this season, and things are looking like they’ll be ramping up based on the preview for next week’s episode.
TheComfySpot 